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slipper

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Etymology and origin of the English word slipper

Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˈslɪpə(ɹ)/[1]
  • US: /ˈslɪpəɹ/[1]

slipper1 slippery

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
Old English, Liber Scintillarum
Inherited from
Old English slipor via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Proto-Germanic *slipraz

Etymology

The adjective meaning slippery is inherited from Middle English sliper, also slipper,[2][3] inherited from Old English slipor (“slippery”),[4][5][6][7] from Proto-Germanic *slipraz;[8][9] Heidermanns finds it only in West Germanic.[10] It is cognate with Middle Low German slipper (“slippery”) and Old High German sleffar,[4][8][11][5] and related to the verb slip.[4][5] Orel derives the Germanic adjective from the strong verb *slīpaną.[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Having a smooth surface, hard to hold or apt to slip, also figuratively: in Old English, in the Liber Scintillarum, where it renders Latin lubricus in a sentence on the devil as a serpent.[4][7]

Semantic evolution

Already in Old English it was used of shifty, unreliable conduct, in Ælfric,[4] and Bosworth–Toller also records the senses "foul" and "unsteady, without fixed principles".[7] Middle English used it for a road or bridge that was slippery to stand on (about 1290, in the South English Legendary), for deceitful people, for a forgetful memory and for unstable conditions.[4][2] Shakespeare uses the form in Othello ("A slipper and a subtle knave").[7] Johnson (1755) marked it obsolete and thought it perhaps never used except for poetical convenience, quoting Spenser's "slipper hope".[12] It survived in dialect: the English Dialect Dictionary records it for slippery in Scotland, Ireland, Somerset, Devon and Cornwall, as in Devon zlipper,[13] and the OED has a dialect sense "fluent, talkative" from 1842.[4] Merriam-Webster labels the word chiefly dialectal, also in the sense "pliant, willowy".[3]

Timeline

  • Old English – slippery, hard to hold; also of shifty conduct.[4][7]
  • c. 1290 – of a surface, slippery to stand on.[4][2]
  • c. 1430 – of conditions, unstable and uncertain.[4]
  • c. 1460 – of persons, deceitful.[4]
  • 1589 – easily uttered or pronounced.[4]
  • 1842 – in dialect, fluent or talkative.[4]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. (chiefly dialect) Slippery; smooth and hard to hold or to stand on.[3][6][13]
  2. (chiefly dialect) Pliant, supple.[3]
  3. (archaic) Deceitful or unreliable; fickle.[4][6][2]
  4. (dialect) Fluent, talkative.[4][6]

slipper2 light indoor shoe

Confidence
Established
Formation
Derivation
First attested
c. 1478 Paston Letters
Ultimate origins
Middle Low German slippenEnglish -er
Etymology tree of slipper2
inherited borrowed derived
English slip
English slipper

Etymology

The word for the shoe is formed from English slip + -er, from the verb, as a shoe that is easily slipped on.[4][6][14][15][16] Middle English had slipper, from slippen (“to slip”).[2][3] Old English had slypescoh, literally "slip-shoe",[14] and Hoad compares the dialect slip-shoe of the 16th century.[17]

Earliest recorded meaning

A light shoe, easily slipped on and chiefly worn indoors: about 1478, in the Paston letters ("a peyer of sclyppers").[4][2] Etymonline dates the word to the late 14th century,[14] and the MED's first, uncertain quotation, from Colchester before 1399, may refer to drags or brake shoes.[2]

Semantic evolution

The slipper as an instrument for beating a child is recorded by Etymonline from the 1580s and by the OED from 1682, the year of the first record of the verb slipper, to beat with one.[14][4] The phrase to stand upon one's slippers, to behave pompously, was used from 1580 to 1606.[4] The shape gave names to other things: the hammerhead shark (1796, after French pantouflier),[4] the lip of an orchid (1902),[4] and creatures such as the slipper limpet (1828).[14] A sliding part was also called a slipper: a skid or drag for a cart wheel (1827), also in Midland and southern English dialects,[4][13] a guide block on a piston rod (1881) and a device that collects current from a conductor rail (1900).[4] The verb came to mean to put slippers on (1856) and to shuffle along in slippers (1888).[4]

Timeline

  • c. 1478 – a light indoor shoe.[4][2] Etymonline dates the word to the late 14th century.[14]
  • 1580 – to stand upon one's slippers, to act pompously (obsolete by 1606).[4]
  • 1682 – a slipper used to beat a child; the verb, to beat with a slipper.[4]
  • 1796 – the hammerhead shark.[4]
  • 1827 – a skid or drag for slowing a vehicle downhill.[4]
  • 1856 – the verb, to put slippers on.[4]
  • 1900 – a device collecting current from a conductor rail.[4]
  • 1903 – a temporary horseshoe.[4][6]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A light, low shoe that slips easily on and off, worn mainly indoors: He padded down to breakfast in his slippers.[18][3][6]
  2. A light slip-on shoe for dancing or formal wear.[6][3]
  3. A temporary horseshoe.[6][4]
  4. A skid or drag for slowing a wheel on a descent.[4][13]
  5. A sliding part that collects current from a conductor rail, or a guide block on a piston rod.[4]

Verb

  1. To strike with a slipper.[3][4][6]
  2. To put slippers on.[3][4]
  3. To walk or shuffle in slippers.[3][4][6]

Word family

  • slippered
  • slipperlike
  • ballet slipper
  • carpet slipper
  • house slipper

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ a b c d e Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  8. ^ a b c Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  9. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  10. ^ Heidermanns, Frank (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der germanischen Primäradjektive, Berlin / New York: De Gruyter
  11. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
  12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  13. ^ a b c d Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  14. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  15. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  16. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  17. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  18. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Derived terms

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Slipper.” Etymologically, 2 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/slipper. Accessed 2 Nov. 2026.

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